Words
by lokis-advocate
Summary: It was Cecil's words that Carlos had fallen in love with.


It was Cecil's words that Carlos had fallen in love with.

In fact, he didn't even know what the man looked like when he first heard the radio show. He'd first heard rolling into town, when his oldies station suddenly warped from CCR to an odd tribal chanting, and then to Cecil's melodic tones. Carlos tried to change it, but it seemed that every station within fifty miles of Night Vale was the same. That was the first thing to set him off to Night Vale's... culture, and it was the first thing he grew to accept.

Everyone in town listened to Cecil. Carlos heard it in the grocery store, in his lab, playing from loudspeakers near the city council building(which Carlos tried to avoid due to the low humming always emitting from that area that made his ears writhe), and in citizen's homes. At first, Carlos thought that it was just because Cecil was very popular, which may or may not still be the case, but soon he began to theorize that maybe they had no other choice.

No matter the case, there was a always a radio nearby when Cecil's show came on, and Carlos, whether he wanted to or not(and he did want to), listened in.

After a couple of shows, it seemed to the scientist that Cecil knew a lot about what he looked like, but Carlos couldn't say the same about the radio host. He'd memorized everything about Cecil's voice, from it's pitch the way he accentuated certain words in a sentence. But he couldn't begin to describe what he looked like physically.

When he called that town meeting so long ago(was it so long? Or did time in Night Vale just pass in such a way that it seemed like it was a long time ago?), he didn't recognize Cecil(or anyone for that matter, save for his colleagues) in the crowd. Through process of elimination, Carlos could possibly place him as the man in the tie, sitting two rows back, but he couldn't be sure.

He even tried asking people what Cecil looked like. They would answer vaguely, things like, "oh, you know, he's so handsome," or, "he's got a charm about him; a good aura," and, "he is the mirror, the mirror that reflects us all, a mirror to our souls, all our souls, mine, and yours, and mine, and yours."

He came up with pretty much nothing concrete. So he did what any scientist would do. He did research.

Early in the morning, Carlos went out to the radio station with a camera. Sure enough, at about 7 AM, a man with dark, leathery skin and long black hair strung up in a ponytail came up and unlocked the door. He was wearing black slacks, a purple button down, and a grey vest. His yellow eyes were framed by thick black reading glasses. Carlos took a picture.

Later that evening, Carlos perched outside of the radio station, waiting for Cecil. He thought best, now he knew what he looked like, after all, to introduce themselves properly. Cecil seemed very nice, if a bit eccentric.

At close to 10 PM, Carlos heard keys jingling from behind the door and he straightened his lab coat as best he could. He thought about messing with his hair, but he had a feeling Cecil would like it either way.

Two people walked about of the building; one woman wrapped in a hijab, carrying folders and files and pamphlets, and a young, blond man with bright purple eyes. He was wearing black slacks, a purple button down, and a grey vest. He locked the door and waved goodbye to the girl, and then headed up the sidewalk. The man stopped in his tracks when he saw Carlos and his pale face lit up bright red.

"Oo-oh! Hello, Carlos!" the man said in a wimbling voice, "nice to see you here! I-I didn't know, you know, that, you were, well- ahem, you see, it's nice to see, uh..." He trailed off.

Carlos just looked at him for a long time. That was Cecil's voice, so whoever opened up the station that morning was not Cecil. Carlos, like any professional, snapped a picture and ran away.

The next morning, Carlos reported back to the radio station and took more pictures. In the morning, a man with skin darker than his own and a short braid unlocked the door, wearing similar clothes to what Cecil had been wearing the day before, and at the end of the day, a smaller, pale man with a shock of orange hair closed up, again, in the same outfit.

This went on for a few more days; Carlos hid outside the station and took photos, then compiled them all at his desk in the lab. At the end of the week, he had a small stack and he arranged them all chronologically.

He'd only taken time to speak to the blonde man, but that had been the only time he'd seen him. This was the man he presumed to be Cecil. Then who were the other thirteen?

Carlos studied the pictures endlessly, looking for some kind of clue. Were they all radio staff? Why did they all dress so similarly? And then who was the girl, or the other differently dressed individuals who went in and out of the radio station, sometimes never coming back?

Eventually, Carlos was at a loss. He never saw these men out in town ever again, and never spoke to them. He heard Cecil's voice on the radio everyday, and only had the blond man's voice to place it.

Carlos kneeded his forehead. This was frustrating; he needed a second opinion.

Gathering the photos, he wandered over to one of his colleagues. He grabbed a random picture and held it out to her.

"Do you know this man?" he asked bluntly. His fellow scientist looked up from her work and glanced at her coworker before inspecting the photo.

"Why, that's Cecil," she replied, smiling. Carlos nodded and went to another scientist.

"Do you this man?" he asked, pulling out a different photo.

"That's the radio host, you know, Cecil." Lather, rinse, repeat.

"Do you know this man?"

"It's Cecil!"

"Do you know this man?"

"Well, I should hope you do; he talks about your hair near everyday."

"Do you know this man?"  
"Well, everyone knows him, he's Cecil!"

"Cecil's his name!"

"That's the radio host!"

"He's the one on the radio, Cecil!"

So they were all Cecil. Carlos slumped in his wheely chair and stared blankly at the photos. How could all of these men look so drastically different, yet all of them could be recognized as the same person? Was there something that Carlos was missing? Perhaps it was another "Night Vale thing." A certain something that Carlos just couldn't get a handle on, him being an outsider.

Then he noticed something. The scientist sat up in his chair and inspected each of the mens' foreheads, and sure enough, all of them shared the same tattoo of an eye; at least, Carlos assumed it was a tattoo.

So this was what all of his colleagues were looking for- or perhaps they just noticed before he did- when they recognized this man as Cecil. That one aspect that all of the man's faces shared was that one third eye.

As Carlos looked closer, he started to notice other similarities. He had the same smirk, the same shaped of eyebrow. He was always the same height, always the same weight. His gait stayed as the same confident swagger. It was almost like seeing someone you know dressed up in costume; they're outward appearance is for the most part different, but there are always going to be those little tip offs that let you know that it's really them.

So when Carlos turned on the radio the next day, he didn't try and put a face to those deep, melodious tones. He just listened.

"Dear listeners, we must be grateful for all that we love, and all that loves us. Take time out of your day to think about things that you love. Find pictures of things that you love. Make sculptures depicting things that you love out of wax and place them in your bloodstone circles. Light incense. Chant. Dance. Pray. And cherish."

Carlos fell in love with Cecil's words because there wasn't anything else that mattered.


End file.
